Hari OM Parents,
We had 2 more new kids join our class this week - Aditi and Aajna. After introductions, we started off with the Daily Prayers - most of them are familiar with it but we still got them to repeat the last few for the benefit of the newcomers. We went over when to say all these prayers and what it means briefly. We then reviewed Guru Stotram and Dasavatara Stotram and learned one more new verse in each.
We jumped straight into our new story this week - it was the churning of the ocean - some of them already knew the story as usual but remained quiet so others could enjoy it 🙂 We talked about how Indra had misbehaved because of his pride (they remembered the sharks of the mind) and the Devas had to suffer as a consequence and kept losing to the Asuras. As is their custom, they prayed to Lord Vishnu to help them. Lord Vishnu advises them to make a deal with the Asuras and together churn the ocean so they can get Amrut. They use the Mandara mountain and the Serpent Vasuki to churn and Bhagavan helps them at every stage by first taking the Kurma Avatar to hold the mountain on His back etc. When the poison first appears, they pray to Lord Shiva who consumes the poison and it is held in his neck and his neck turns blue - please see if they remember His name - Neelakanta. We spoke about how everyone sang and danced the whole night to make sure Lord Shiva did not fall asleep - one of the reasons we celebrate Maha Shivaratri. After this, one by one a lot of things appeared from the Milky ocean, like Kamadhenu, Ucchaishravas (Flying horse), Airavata, Apsaras, Parijata tree, Kaustubha Mani, Mahalakshmi who weds MahaVishnu (ask them why She chose Him), and finally Dhanvantri appears with the pot of nectar. But the Asuras run away with it! So the Devas again appeal to Lord Vishnu to help and He takes the beautiful and deluding (another shark of the mind we discussed earlier) form of Mohini and makes sure the Devas get the Amrut. We talked about how anything worth gaining will take a lot of effort and we should not get distracted by the small rewards and should have our end goal in sight - the Devas and Asuras were tired and were willing to give up after they got their goodies but Bhagavan kept them on task and made sure they churned until the nectar came up! At every stage even though the Devas and Asuras felt they were doing the work, it was Bhagavan who was helping them! One of them had a question - are Asuras still there? We told them yes but not in the form that we see in the picture books! We all have the Asura qualities in our mind - the sharks that we discussed earlier.
We had a picture book to show them with all the things that came out of the churning! We also did a small activity with a toy turtle (well we had to use our imagination to see the turtle in it 🙂 ) and a mug of water and pestle and showed them how to churn. They all knew about churning from the Krishna stories!
We then learned the 9th verse from the Bhagavad Gita Ch 1 - we practiced quite a few times until all of them could recite fairly well (it was a bit of a tongue twister). We then followed along with Swamiji's video for 19,20, and 21. We will practice and record the video next week.
We have asked them all to memorize at least 3 Shlokas from the Daily Prayers this week - and if they already know all the Daily prayers then 3 shlokas either from Dasavatara Stotram or Guru Stotram. This will help them prepare for the Shlokathon on April 4th. Please register them if you haven't already.
Also please review this story with them (esp those who were not present last class) and make sure they know it very well as we are planning to enact it for our Stage program on April 3rd. The story is in the Bala Bhagavatam book which most of them have.
Thanks to all the parents who dropped off the items for the Soup Kitchen! We appreciate it! Please make sure the kids come to class regularly. We look forward to seeing them this Friday, Jan 31st.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
